Electrical Bikes Take 10% Market Share of New Motorbike Gross sales in Kenya within the First 8 Months of 2025

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The KNBS Financial Survey Report (2025) masking the interval from January 2024 to December 2024 exhibits that 68,804 new bikes had been registered in Kenya in 2024. Of those, 4,862 bikes had been electrical in line with information offered by the Electrical Mobility Affiliation of Kenya (EMAK). Meaning 7.1% of latest bike registrations final 12 months had been electrical. That is fairly superior given the truth that only a few years in the past, the business was initiated by just a few innovators actually changing previous inner combustion engine bikes in small warehouses in Nairobi’s industrial space.

The 5% threshold is mostly thought-about the purpose the place issues begin to speed up in these sorts of transitions, and subsequently the bike sector market share being at 7% already is thrilling. Given the decrease whole value of possession related to electrical bikes in comparison with their equivalents, this could possibly be a key second for electrical bikes in Kenya. Gamers within the electrical bike business may make the most of this and actually acquire important traction and market share going ahead. I spoke with a number of bike taxi operators in Nairobi just lately, and from the suggestions, you would inform that extra bike taxi riders in Kenya are beginning to heat as much as electrical mobility, which can assist. Asset financing firms are additionally more and more supporting electrical bike financing. For instance, Watu’s 2025 financing plans and targets are as follows:

• To finance 4,850 bikes in Kenya, with 2,000 of them being electrical. That’s an enormous 41% electrical share!
• To finance 27,300 bikes in Uganda, with 3,600 of them being electrical. That’s 13% electrical.

We now have some extra excellent news. The general bike gross sales market in Kenya is beginning to get better after a tough couple of years post-COVID 19. The general bike market in Kenya had been going by means of a tough patch the place gross sales of latest bikes in Kenya dropped from a peak of 285,203 in 2021 to simply 68,804 in 2024. This large drop in gross sales has been attributed to decrease client buying energy, which has lowered the every day utilization of boda bodas in Kenya, and consequently additionally lowered the every day unit profitability for bike taxis as a consequence of larger gasoline prices in latest instances. Different components embody larger financing prices on high of elevated sticker costs for some fashions. Knowledge from KNBS exhibits that the market is now beginning to bounce again, as gasoline costs have fallen and stabilized a bit since then. The Kenyan shilling has additionally strengthened to “regular ranges” of round 129 to the greenback, from 157 in December 2023. One other issue driving rising bike gross sales in Kenya is the surge in adoption of electrical bikes as a number of gamers on this area — equivalent to Arc Trip, Roam, Ampersand, and Spiro — ramp up deliveries of their electrical bikes.

The most recent KNBS Main Financial Indicators Report for August 2025 exhibits that for the interval from January 2025 to August 2025, 97,299 bikes had been offered in Kenya. Meaning 28,495 extra bikes had been offered within the first 8 months of the 12 months in comparison with the entire of 2024!

Right here is the excellent news: 9,368 electrical bikes had been offered in Kenya from January to August of this 12 months, which means that 9.6% of all bikes offered in Kenya within the first 8 months of this 12 months had been electrical! One of many main gamers within the business, Spiro, offered 5,390 electrical bikes from January to August of this 12 months, which means that 5.5% of all bikes offered in Kenya within the first 8 months of the 12 months had been from Spiro. That is super progress from Spiro and all of the gamers which might be lively in Kenya’s electrical bike sector. The sector basically went from 0% to 7% market share in about three years, which is basically cool, and has now pushed on to 10% throughout the first 8 months of the 12 months. With official information from September and October nonetheless to come back, plus gross sales from the final two months of the 12 months, and reviews from a number of electrical bike firms suggesting sooner ramp-ups in manufacturing for these months, we may see the market share for 2025 find yourself at round 15%. That may be super progress. Let’s wait until the tip of the 12 months to see the place we land.

We now have been masking the developments in Kenya’s electrical car sector for over 7 years now — from the early days of some startups changing one or two inner combustion engine bikes in small warehouses as talked about earlier, to seeing the sector develop to virtually 50 gamers within the business. Now we’re seeing market shares of 10%, and probably 15% by 12 months finish. It’s tremendous thrilling to see all this progress in lower than a decade. The business has scaled a lot sooner than most individuals thought it will, and all due to the laborious work and dedication of startups that got down to electrify Kenya’s boda boda sector. With over 2.5 million ICE bikes registered in Kenya, accelerating the adoption of electrical autos is sweet for Kenya. This can go a good distance in lowering CO2 emissions in Kenya, an space the place the transport sector is a giant contributor.

Accelerating adoption additionally may even assist remedy a few of Kenya’s key challenges within the vitality sector. For instance, a difficulty that has been affecting Kenya’s electrical energy panorama is vitality curtailment as a consequence of low uptake of obtainable geothermal era capability throughout the in a single day off-peak hours. For the monetary 12 months that ended on the thirtieth of June 2025, EPRA reviews that vitality curtailment was lowered by 17.72%, from 812.8 GWh curtailed within the earlier 12 months to 668.7 GWh within the 12 months ending June 2025. Nonetheless, 668.7 GWh is sort of 5% of the vitality generated throughout that interval. A lot of the vitality curtailment occurs in a single day at geothermal vegetation. An excellent chunk of this could possibly be higher utilized by means of in a single day charging of electrical autos.

One other space of observe is reliance on fossil gasoline imports. Kenya’s demand for fossil fuels is now near $500 million monthly! That’s an enormous chunk of Kenya’s whole import invoice. At this tempo, in 12 months, Kenya can be spending $6 billion on fossil gasoline imports! The continued reliance on fossil gasoline imports is without doubt one of the most important drivers of Kenya’s commerce deficit. That is maybe an ideal time to essentially catalyze the native electrical mobility sector and to begin to considerably cut back gasoline imports by substituting these imports with domestically generated renewable electrical energy to energy electrical autos.

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